TY - JOUR
T1 - Institutional design for a post-liberal order: why some international organizations live longer than others
AU - Debre, Maria
AU - Dijkstra, Hylke
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 802568).
Funding Information:
The authors are thankful for the constructive comments of two anonymous peer reviewers and the editorial team at EJIR. They are also grateful for valuable comments on previous versions of this article by Tobias Lenz, Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, Thomas D?rfler, Yoram Haftel, Thomas Sommerer, Marie Labussi?re and participants of the ERC Workshop ?Decline and Death of International Organisations? in Brussels (2020), the European Consortium for Political Research General Conference (2019), and the ISA Venture Research Workshop ?International Organization Dissolution? in Zurich (2019). The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 802568).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2021/3/19
Y1 - 2021/3/19
N2 - Many international organizations (IOs) are currently under pressure and the demise of the liberal international order is the talk of town. We theorize that institutional characteristics help to explain why some IOs survive external pressures where others fail. We test this argument through a survival analysis of 150 IOs (1815–2014). We find that the only significant variable explaining the death of IOs is the size of the secretariat: IOs with large bureaucracies are good at coping with external pressures. In addition, IOs with diverging preferences among members and those that are less institutionalized are more likely to be replaced with successor organizations. We find that institutional flexibility included in the treaties does not have an effect on survival. This is surprising because the purpose of flexibility clauses is precisely to deal with external shocks. Finally, we also find that systemic and domestic factors do not explain IO failure. In conclusion, we should not write off the liberal international order all too quickly: large IOs with significant bureaucratic resources are here to stay.
AB - Many international organizations (IOs) are currently under pressure and the demise of the liberal international order is the talk of town. We theorize that institutional characteristics help to explain why some IOs survive external pressures where others fail. We test this argument through a survival analysis of 150 IOs (1815–2014). We find that the only significant variable explaining the death of IOs is the size of the secretariat: IOs with large bureaucracies are good at coping with external pressures. In addition, IOs with diverging preferences among members and those that are less institutionalized are more likely to be replaced with successor organizations. We find that institutional flexibility included in the treaties does not have an effect on survival. This is surprising because the purpose of flexibility clauses is precisely to deal with external shocks. Finally, we also find that systemic and domestic factors do not explain IO failure. In conclusion, we should not write off the liberal international order all too quickly: large IOs with significant bureaucratic resources are here to stay.
KW - International Organizations
KW - Institutional Design
KW - Failure
KW - Survival
KW - Life Cycle
UR - https://sage.figshare.com/articles/dataset/EJIR_Do-File_Research_Data_for_Institutional_design_for_a_post-liberal_order_why_some_international_organizations_live_longer_than_others/13168686/1
UR - https://sage.figshare.com/articles/dataset/EIJR_Replicationdata_Research_Data_for_Institutional_design_for_a_post-liberal_order_why_some_international_organizations_live_longer_than_others/13168683/1
U2 - 10.1177/1354066120962183
DO - 10.1177/1354066120962183
M3 - Article
SN - 1354-0661
VL - 27
SP - 311
EP - 339
JO - European Journal of International Relations
JF - European Journal of International Relations
IS - 1
M1 - 1354066120962183
ER -